Soso Dumbadze (Georgia)

Soso Dumbadze (1981) is based in Cologne and Tbilisi. He studied film and media arts at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (2011). His PhD project at University of Fine Arts of Hamburg (2020) deals with Georgian and Russian avant-garde cinema focusing on political essay film. Since 2021 Dumbadze has been a professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA), where he now is also co-head of the BA program for Audio-visual Arts from 2023 on.

Dumbadze’s works were presented at The Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany (the Bundeskunsthalle), Art Cologne, New Talents – Biennale, Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, among others. His video installation “The Parallel” (2011), analyzing media representations of power on the example of the inaugurations of presidents Saakashvili and Putin, was acquired by the Culture Department of the City of Cologne, under the curatorship of Dr. Barbara Engelbach from the Ludwig Museum (Cologne). The video installation “A Yellow Bus” (2017) addressing homophobia in Georgia using materials depicting the events of May 17, 2013 in Tbilisi was also presented in Tbilisi and had to be guarded by about 100 policemen. His films have been screened at IDFA, Dok-Leipzig, First Look at MOMI in NYC and others.

In Tbilisi, Dumbadze organizes film seminars with participation of international speakers. In 2006 he founded “Sazogadoebrivi Gamomtsemloba Sa.Ga.” (“Sa.Ga. Publishing for Society”), which has published 20 books, including works by Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno, Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, Pier Paolo Pasolini, as well as contemporary authors / artists Harun Farocki and Chris Marker. Soso Dumbadze delivered presentations of his monograph “Kote Mikaberidze” (in English 2018, co-author Nino Dzandzava) at the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), German Film Museum (Frankfurt), Frankfurt Book Fair.